


In Plain Sight

by Rhianne



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e08 The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg, Gen, Gen Fic, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianne/pseuds/Rhianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhonda's point-of-view of the events of The Sentinel, by Blair Sandburg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

She’s not a cop. Nor has she ever wanted to be one, even though she works with cops every day, sharing their triumphs and commiserating alongside them when jury verdicts don’t seem to reflect any kind of justice.

She’s never visited a crime scene or looked down at a dead body, though she’s seen plenty in the photographs she handles. They don’t affect her any more; eight years of exposure to the horrors that man does to man because of money, jealousy and rage has rendered her largely immune, though she still struggles when children are among those whose lives are sacrificed.

Her job has made her harder, able to detach her emotions when necessary, but she knows that if she can ever stare at the broken body of a child, even in a photo, without being affected, then that will be her last day in the Major Crimes Unit.

Her work has done more than make her a stronger person. She’s more observant now, more aware of the people around her, a skill developed for her own protection as much as anyone else’s. She knows when Ellison is hurting, can tell the days when Captain Banks is desperately missing his son without having to ask how long it’s been since his ex-wife allowed him to see Daryl without making him fight for the privilege.

She’s surrounded by cops who are more observant than she’ll ever be, whose skills have rubbed off on her with every detailed report she’s ever read, and yet, in some ways, she sees more than any of them.

She’s been there since the beginning, when Blair Sandburg was just a stranger, a civilian caught up in a hostage crisis who should never have been involved. He was an oddity then, with no place in the structured, ordered world of the police department where all the cops acted the same, their training making them efficient, dedicated, and oh so similar. 

When the crisis was over no-one had expected him to come back; no civilian, after all, could blithely handle that kind of dangerous situation, and yet he’d surprised them all by returning the very next day, that already familiar bounce still in his step as he watched everything, drinking in all those around him like a kid in a candy store. Back then, he was the most observant of them all, wanting to know everything and everyone. Needing to belong.

For three years he’s been Ellison’s shadow, but he’s not the same man he was then. The bounce in his step has gone – he’s calmer, quieter somehow, and she wonders why, in a roomful of trained cops, no-one else seems to have noticed.

Maybe it’s because she’s not a cop, instead in some ways an outsider just like him. She may be a respected member of the admin staff, but in all the ways that matter she’s still a civilian, standing on the sidelines as the officers of the Major Crimes unit do their duty to uphold the law.

She’s watched the partnership of Ellison and Sandburg develop over the years, first into something strong, a formidable team that had others green with jealousy. She hears the things said about them when neither man is anywhere near the station, idle speculation about their private lives, about the latest miracle Ellison has somehow managed to pull off with Blair a constant presence at his side. She listens as they marvel that a civilian is being sent into dangerous undercover situations that most cops would think twice about accepting, and then smiles to herself as the disbelief increases every time Sandburg succeeds, the two men closing case after case with seemingly little effort.

She hears the rumours that whisper around the station when Captain Banks is nowhere around, the belief that Ellison can see things, hear things that no-one else can, perpetuated by patrolmen who see the two of them investigating crime scenes, often finding things that forensics, with all their high-tech equipment, have missed.

She says nothing, preferring to keep her own counsel, but she’s the one who processes their reports, and of the entire Major Crimes unit, only Ellison’s paperwork talks of finding minute fibre traces in the ashes of a burned out building, or smelling things that no-one else has even noticed, let alone managed to identify.

She has her own theories about Jim Ellison.

But she wonders how a man with such keen abilities, someone who, they say, can see a single breath floating in the wind, can miss the signs that are right under his nose.

She sees the looks Blair gives Jim when he thinks no-one’s looking. Looks of regret and sadness that Ellison doesn’t seem to notice, no matter how good his eyes are. She’s watched, helplessly, as Blair’s sheer love for life slowly drained out of his eyes, as he grew quieter, increasingly subdued. He walks differently now, no longer taking in everything around him. Instead he keeps his eyes turned away from other people, minding his own business and only engaging in idle conversation when it’s drawn from him, when someone else takes the initiative.

She knows many people who act like that, who always have done, but to see that behaviour in Blair, who was once such an extrovert, able to coax even the most reserved of men back into society, it’s an obscenity.

She’s seen how, each time he’s ignored, or his contribution to the department devalued, he’s backed off and let it happen, instead of fighting back the way he once did, refusing to be silenced and insisting his voice be heard.

He always seems to be tired these days, drained, as if his life is demanding more than he has to give, consuming the man he once was.

No-one else seems to notice.

Now she stands with the others facing the TV screen, watching as Blair turns his back on everything he once held dear. The hoarse, faltering voice coming through the speakers holds a pain and despair that has been clearly displayed in his eyes for months, even if no-one else wanted to acknowledge it.

She sees the look of dawning horror on Jim’s face and wonders if he is finally seeing what has been obvious to her for so long.

She can’t quite shake the feeling that it’s far too little, much too late.


End file.
